It IS rocket science . . .

  Operation Paperclip.

  Does that sound clandestine?  How about Project Bumper?

  As World War II was in its final throes, a race developed which was to foreshadow world events for another 40 years of "Cold War".  The falling 3rd Reich was leaving bits and pieces, some of them quite valuable, for the victors to take as spoils of war.

  The Russians and Americans raced to see who could claim the prizes at Peenemünde.

  As the German nation was disintegrating, and cloaked by its death spasms, many of the men and women who reported for work daily at Peenemünde, scanned the skies and nearby terrain for the troops approaching from both sides.

  When it was clear to them that the Russians may arrive first, a number of the brilliant "whiz kids" of early rocket science gathered up their drawings and designs from this top-secret missile test and development facility, and made a near-frenzied dash toward the American forces.

  Operation Paperclip was the hush-hush intelligence-directed project to grab up Dr. Kurt Debus and his team of pioneers and bring them safely to the United States.  In a carefully, though hurriedly, devised plan, intelligence officers worked to find ways around an edict by President Harry Truman, crafting false identities for more than a hundred scientists, technicians, and managers from the secret base and other places vital to the German rocket program.  Under these assumed identities, the team, headed by the brilliant young techno-scientific mind of Werner von Braun, was spirited to places in the United States where they could continue their work, experimentation with rockets, and research.

  Along with the team, a number of captured German V-2 rockets, whose predecessors had terrorized Europe, were brought to the States.  For more than two years, the team continued working on the projects they had begun in another land, but with some added features and equipment from the American work.

  Project Bumper became the code-name for experimentation which mounted an American-made WAC Corporal missile atop the German-made V-2, as an experimental second stage.  During 1948 and 1949, from the White Sands Proving Grounds, the team launched at least six "mated" vehicles in test flights, with varying degrees of success.

  The team packed up their gear and moved to a triangular spit of land on the central east coast of Florida, and in 1950, on July 24th, completed the first rocket launch over the Joint Long Range Proving Ground, from Cape Canaveral.

  A few days ago, we passed the milestone -- 60 years since that first historic launch from Cape Canaveral.  Dr. Kurt Debus later became the first Director of the space program facilities based at The Cape - as it came to be known -- and Dr. von Braun became the "father" of the U.S. program to fly men to the moon and back.

  Debus, von Braun, Rocco Petrone, and their teams are gone from among us now, but the benefits of their brilliance and dedication are still blessing the world.

  A hearty salute to the men and women who pioneered the world's exploration of earth and space with rocket science, and to their successors who have carried on their dangerous, but exciting work.

  This old Gentleman Farmer is humbled and honored to have "walked among them", and values his charter membership in the "Aerospace, Missile, and Range Pioneers", begun at Cape Canaveral during the 1960s, to honor those men and women who gave us their dreams.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_H._Debus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumper_Project
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Von_Braun